Reviews by:
RATE THIS COMIC BOOK
6
5
4
3
This omnibus starts with a 10 page long story from Bizarre Adventures. There aren't many things I can say about it. It's a small and forgettable story, who's only strength is its very nice, black & white artwork. After that follows an issue of "What If...?" which asks the question "What if Elektra had lived?" Practically the answer is that her and Matt would live a happy and carefree life together, away from all the troubles. That's honestly quite depressing, considering that she's dead and Matt's chance for happiness is long gone. The artwork in this issue is done by Frank Miller and it's very similar to the style of artwork he used in his Daredevil run. Personally I love that style of artwork and I especially love Frank's very innovative work with page structure.
Score: 7/10
Elektra Assassin
It's hard to understand exactly what's going on in this story, because a very big part is narrated by Elektra and let me tell you, there's something wrong with her mind because her thoughts are totally messed up and make little to no sense. This story takes place long before Elektra's death in Frank Miller's iconic Daredevil run and it starts with her remembering her past, her hard childhood, her abusive father, her years getting trained by Stick and everything leading up to the assassination job that she currently has to do. She escapes from the place in which she was imprisoned and she does the job. Because of that, someone wants to kill her and she fights back, but instead of killing the guy, he blows him up and leaves him almost dead. The company that he works for (SHIELD) is able to catch her and he, Garrett, falls in love with her. Somehow she escapes and both her and him find themselves in an airport, in which she wants to kill Wind, which is a guy who runs for president, but she actually kills someone else. After that it gets even more confusing. Some people trap Elektra's conscience in another girl's body and Garrett tries to free her and after he does so they somehow get in an underwater fight with some SHIELD agents and they defeat them and the whole organisation is after them.
This was a very interesting comic, but also way more hard to read than it should've been. Elektra is great and this comic certainly evolves her character a lot. She's a very complex and damaged character. She has lived a very hard life and she has daddy issues and delusions. The she's written is certainly one of this comic's highlights. Another good thing about this comic is how feministic it is and also how it criticizes various things from the real world (like the fear of a nuclear war, which was something very real at the time this came out) and especially politicians. It very heavily criticizes Nixon and also how politicians are double faced and they use very questionable tactics during the elections. Besides everything good, this comic also has multiple negatives. One of the main things that I found negative is the fact that it had way too much text. Usually I'm a fan of comics with a lot of text, but in this one it's very hard to follow, because half the story is narrated by Elektra who is sort of crazy and the other half is narrated by Garrett who is a drunk and also sort of crazy. Fortunately, after a while things start making sense, but until then the reading experience isn't very good and the lettering certainly doesn't help. The lettering in this comic is very confusing. The way the narration boxes are placed in the pages make the whole reading experience very hard and unpleasant. I get why Frank Miller wanted to make this comic confusing, but it's not something that I particularly enjoyed.
Probably the greatest aspect of this comic is Bill Sienkiewicz's artwork, which is beautiful and crazy. Bill's style is very unique and he really knows how to perfectly combine the colors and create really special pages. His artwork is very surreal and it fits perfectly with the story.
Overall, I think that while this comic has many negative aspects, it also has many positives, which are more and of greater importance. It's not particularly a fun read, but it has a lot of nice action and violence and the characters are very complex and interesting. I wouldn't call it one of Frank Miller's best works, but it's certainly one of his good ones.
Score: 7.5/10
Elektra Lives Again
Despite what you might think, this isn't really a comic about Elektra, but a comic about Matt Murdock (Daredevil). The story takes place shortly after Elektra's death and it follows Matt, as he's being haunted by Elektra's memory, when he's awake and when he's asleep. His dreams of her are becoming a torture and he does whatever he can to end it.
This was a very short and good comic. It's a very easy and enjoyable read, but it also deals with very important things like grieve, loss, pain and acceptance. This could very easily become a story filled with misery and boredom, but thanks to the way Frank Miller combines everything serious in this comic with fun action, it becomes a great read. I really like the fact that while we see Matt a lot in this story, he's never fighting in his Daredevil costume, full of glory. Instead he's a normal person, trying to deal with something very real, the death of someone he loved.
The artwork by Frank Miller is very good. Frank always changes his style a lot and while many times this leads to atrocious results, this time it works perfectly. The way the characters and the action are drawn is great, but in my opinion, the best aspect of the artwork is the perspective of each panel. Frank really knows how to "direct" each panel and in here he does that perfectly.
Overall, this was a really great comic, probably the best in the entire omnibus, in my opinion. It's easy to read, it has a lot of depth and it's beautifully drawn and colored.
Score: 10/10
The entire omnibus score: 8.5/10
RATE THIS REVIEW
6
5
4
3
